High Society.

I've joined Society6, a website for artists and creative types to share, sell, colaborate and connect. There is some extremely wonderful work there to see. The 'discovery' section is especially good, throwing up page after page of arty pictures for you to gawp at. Lovely.

It's Cold Outside...

Check out the striking black and white graphics for the BBC's coverage of the winter Olympics which start on 12th February in Vancouver. Stunning art and animation. Full Stop.

Spiral Mountain Magic.

This morning, my good friend and ex-workmate Grant Kirkhope highlighted this fine version of one of his own classic tunes from the videogame Banjo-Kazooie. So enjoy this redition of 'Spiral Mountain'. Can't help but think back to the summer of 1997 when we first showed BK at E3 in Atlanta, Great days.

Me and My Friends

This is the result of the free time I had over Christmas (not as much as I'd hoped) to make some progress with my childrens story (not as much as I'd liked). Anyway, because the story has a lot of birds, I thought I'd get some practice in. I also wanted to have more of a go at making something that kept a sketchy look to it, and had plenty of colour. I'm pleased with the result. Next job, finish the words and try and draw something that could actually go in the book...

PS - I added a few words to try and make it into something that you could call finished :-)

I'm a Troll....

Oh dear. Over a week since I last posted. Not a good start.

Anyway. I plucked up enough courage to join Flickr and upload some of my artwork for the world to see. The warm response and nice comments that I have recieved will be chearished. Thank you.

Here is my most recent upload. A version of the male bad guy from my story. He's a second generation sketch and along the right lines. The background is stolen from an earlier sketch.

The Dark Arts

Alchemy - the ancient art of turning base things into gold. Or, an incredible drawing tool that you can find over at http://al.chemy.org. I first saw this last year; a friend of mine was using it and it just blew me away. Now, I've managed to have a go myself and have found it so useful for knocking out quick and loose sketches. It's like having using ink on your screen. A really fun change from Photoshop and Painter. Well, for me anyway.

Duelling Banjo..And Kazooie

Here's something from a little while ago. Ten years ago, to be precise. After completing the game Banjo-Tooie,myself and Steve Mayles assembled all the characters we had created for the game and made a picture for the development team. We all signed the print and had them framed. Looking back now at those characters - pretty much all of which were designed, built and animated by the two of us in 2 years. Blimey.

This artwork and characters are the property of Rare and Microsoft Game Studios. But, you knew that.

I'm starting to worry. I seem to have a fascination with murky-yellowy-brown palettes. Hmm.

Following on from yesterday, this is another sketch/test for my story. The beginning of the tale is quite bleak and I wanted the art to reflect this. I really got into my paint splatters and coffee stains on this one...

I've just stumbled across this little fellow whilst trying to dig out some other pictures to post. Anyway, he's had enough of being hidden away on my harddisk.

Mag+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.

Evening. I found this over at www.drawn.ca. A very slick looking proposal for presenting magazine like material on one of those new fangled e-reader thingies. Having been putting my own attempts at a childrens story in a standard 32 page layout, this video makes interesting viewing.

I've been very busy over the last year trying to take some of my story ideas and draw pictures to go with them. This is an early sketch. I seem to have spent a great deal of time trying to find a style that suits both myself and the story. More to follow. Probably.

And here's the follow up. Mr Pig ventures out into space for the 'thank you' cards. I had great fun painting both of the pictures.

I have to start somewhere, so here goes. This piccy was for my eldest son's 2nd birthday party invites. The image was printed onto postcards with party details on the back.